Felicia In The Mix
by Jakesbrain
Summary: InTheMix, America's 3rd-biggest music magazine, publishes a VERY in-depth, gonzo profile of the world's one and only catgirl pop star.  Some differences from canon; I took a few liberties. Call it an AU.   Rated T for mild language. Feedback requested.
1. Pages 1–2

**"Felicia In The Mix"**

A story by Jacob C.

* * *

Dedicated to A.S., who's been there.

* * *

From _INTHEMIX MAGAZINE_, June 2005:

**The InTheMix InDepth Profile**

_Our own **Rick van de Mijne** spends a weekend in Vegas with **FELICIA **and winds up more InDepth than he (or we) bargained for: He gets an up-close and personal glimpse into her past and her philosophy, takes the best seat in the house for three truly epic performances, and goes drinking after-hours with the popstar pussycat and her band._

_Slice Of Life / 1 On 1 / Live Show Review / Gonzo Journalism_

_Pop / Bubblegum Rock / Indie_

_(Photos by Richard van de Mijne)_

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[Pages 1-2]

* * *

I suppose that, in dealing with the subject I have at hand, I'm going to need to rehash yet again the musings about "paranaturals" (as the current lingo has it) that have appeared at the beginning of so many other books and articles, and in other places, over the past fifteen years. So here goes: The revelation of the existence of paranaturals has been the single most transformative moment of the past millennium. Never has the human race been permitted to peek beyond the veils of what, for our entire history, we called reality; never before have we been absolutely certain in the knowledge that we were not alone on the planet, that ours was not the only story worth telling, that some of our most cherished myths, legends, and even horror stories were based on truth. Some would argue that we might not have been ready for this knowledge, but, ready or not, we discovered them, and the frontiers of science and philosophy have all been expanded. The paranaturals have been found to operate in areas of physics, chemistry, and even geometry that we had yet to discover (that, in fact, we could hardly have imagined), in ways that would once have been huffily dismissed as mere superstitions about "magic"... Ah, but enough of that; as I said, we've heard it all before. The pages of _InTheMix_ don't need to be wasted on _that_ twaddle. And besides, there's only one specific paranatural in this story.

On this fine clear Thursday afternoon in April, we're in Paradise, Nevada – not too far from the Las Vegas Strip. The location is a dressing room backstage at The Joint, the premium concert venue of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino; The Joint has a standing-room capacity of four thousand, and I have been informed that tickets have sold out entirely. No surprise, considering whose dressing room, precisely, I'm sitting in.

And she's sitting right across from me, perched cross-legged on top of a chair, hands (forepaws?) clasping her ankles, rocking back and forth almost childishly as she talks Vegas. "I've been all around the world, and loved every corner of it," she is saying. "But this is still the place I love the best. It's my home, and I wouldn't trade it for – for anything, really." She laughs.

I've noticed, I say, that you laugh very easily. Everything comes with a smile or a grin or a giggle...

"Myahh," she says. It's an amusing little verbal tic, an all-purpose affirmative she frequently deploys – and the closest she ever comes to actually meowing. "I'm told I have a naturally sunny disposition, whatever that's supposed to mean. If that means I'm happy most of the time, they're right. Not always, though, 'cuz that'd be a little weird..." She looks sly for a moment, cocking an eyebrow. "Tell you _one_ thing. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." And she giggles again, swaying in her seat, her blue hair and white tail swaying behind her.

* * *

Anyone who's actually spoken to the artist known only as **Felicia** for more than two minutes will have stories to tell about her charm, her charisma, her incredible – some might say 'supernatural' – ability to win people over, to gain their confidence. Here, at roughly the midpoint of a good three hours of one-on-one conversation, I'm just about ready to concede the supernatural explanation; having the full force of this creature's personal magnetism turned upon you is like having a spotlight shined directly in your face. I don't know _where_ it comes from. Or rather, I couldn't pinpoint it. It's in _everything_ – the twinkle in her emerald eyes, the angle of her ears, the sway of her tail, the girlish voice, the un-self-conscious body language, the infectious enthusiasm, the complete lack of any trace of shyness or dissimulation. It seems to thwart any attempt at tying her down to a specific age. You know rationally that she's thirty-five years old, as she claims, but she doesn't look a day over twenty-one, nor act it. She seems, despite all the world can do (and has done) to her, never to have truly lost her innocence; "girl" is a better word to describe her than "woman", and one suspects it always will be. A kitten, not a cat. Or a kitten's heart inside the sleek, enchanting form of a full-grown cat.

She sets you at ease with astonishing speed, and it isn't long before you've discovered some kind of mutual affinity – inside of fifteen minutes, it's as if you've been best friends with Felicia all your life. You begin to feel that you could trust her implicitly, as she already seems to trust you, and that it would be crude and repugnant to repay her trust with betrayal... I've been a journalist for God knows how long, and spoken to hundreds of people; I've only ever met three other people who were capable of establishing this instant rapport with everyone they encountered. And none of them were in the music business.

Ah, it's a terribly cruel world, the Recording Industry. It preys on people, eats them alive. It hardly has a _non_-seamy side. We all know how its victims end up – faded, tarnished stars; bitter, cynical old money-grubbing producers and execs. We've heard the horror stories. We've seen the meteoric rise, and ignominious fall, of too many ephemeral pop superstars to count. This kitten, though, must bear a charmed life; after seven years in the public eye, none of the usual pop-star scandals have rocked her career. The standard temptations – intoxicants, easy money, the lusts of the flesh, the obsession with getting good press – have all utterly failed to attract, let alone unseat her. When I bring up the subject with her, Felicia just shrugs. "I'm not interested," she says. "There's just nothing there for me."

Not even the sex thing? One of mankind's oldest temptations, y'know.

"Nope. Not even that, baby," she says. "I've already given my heart, and that's all there is to it." Her eyes drift away for a few seconds, and I realize she's thinking of her mysterious boyfriend. I've spoken to Jon – as in Jonathan, or is it John-with-an-H?; he never said – once or twice today: a tall, strongly-built British gent with long spikes of gray hair, gifted with a stern, gruff, but youthful face from which a rascally, almost wolfish grin rarely flashes. All too rarely, Felicia has told me; she wouldn't elaborate any further, but merely said that his life before she hooked up with him had been rough, and he'd developed a **_SEVERE_** attitude problem as a result. As it is, he's been Felicia's road manager and assistant live-sound man since the beginning of her career, but insists on his own privacy and, much to her disappointment, has refused to be credited in the liner notes of her albums except by his initials, **JGT**. While we're talking in the dressing room, he's busy supervising the unloading of the tour bus. The words "runs a tight ship" come to mind, but by all accounts he's earned his crew's loyalty.

But there was that time, I remind her, when you disappeared from sight for about eight straight months. Tongues started wagging, people started talking–

"Yeah, 'cuz talking is what those people do best," she interrupts me. "Like the way they talked about my clothes when I first started out."

Or your lack of them, I say. Politeness dictates I look elsewhere as I say it, but my eye can't help gliding downward for half a moment to the thick white patches of fur that cover (just barely) her toned and sculpted body.

Noticing, she smirks. "Yeah, that part does get frustrating, but I'm not changing the way I live for anyone else but me... I mean, _seriously_, Richie. Do I really look like the person who'd be doing what _they_ say I do?" And dammit, she doesn't.

So what _were_ you doing for those eight months? I ask.

"Hmm. I'd prefer not to talk about it... Nothing illegal, though, I can promise you that. Not the kind of thing the _tabloids_ can jump on."

You've had a hell of a run of luck in this business, too, I say. No dishonest record deals, no unfair treatment by the press, no backstabbing agents or producers... it hasn't exactly been a bumpy ride for you.

"Myahh, I know. Like you said, luck..."

And sheer charisma, I say.

"Maybe." She smiles her even, white, fifteen-kilowatt-arclight smile again, and I notice the sharp, slightly protruding points of her upper canine teeth. Even these don't make her any less cute. In fact, they have almost the opposite effect, endearing little things that they are...

I pause to reflect. Dear God, this girl. Even her _teeth_ are cute.

* * *

Of course, Felicia sells herself a little short here; it's not merely her luck or her natural charm that's made her invulnerable to temptation. She seems to have a paladin's instinct for right and wrong, a trait she credits to her late, beloved foster mother. When the name "Sister Cecilia Rose" comes up, there's a brief glimpse of loss in those green eyes, a brief droop of the furry ears.

"Mom," she says. "Myahh, I miss her... I think about her every day. But _damn_, am I ever glad _she's_ the one that raised me." The smile returns; the eye twinkles again. "She'd prob'ly go into conniptions to hear me talking like that now. I used to do it just to get on her nerves: 'Dammit dammit God dammit to _hell_.' Dude, she'd get so _pissed_... But she absolutely loved me, and not a day goes by I'm not grateful for it. Like, if it wasn't for Mom, I wouldn't be who I am." (Her gratitude, incidentally, is a matter of public record. Over the last five years, she's donated something around 850 grand a year to the convent outside Vegas where she was raised. Her contributions have been enough to singlehandedly keep her old K-12 parish school running.)

"I'm not exactly, like, the brightest bulb in the box or anything, but Mom never treated me like I was slow. The way she put it was, there's good and bad in the world – good things and bad things, good people and bad people, good ideas and bad ideas – and you don't exactly gotta be Einstein to figure out which is which. You just think it over real carefully... and deep down inside, you'll _know_." She taps the side of her head with the pad of one oversized finger. "So far, she's always been right. Every time I've gotta make a big decision, I sit right down and ask myself, what would my Mom have done?"

So your mother's the voice of your conscience, then.

"Yep. Y'know something? I've heard people talking about how conscience is overrated, that it's a throwback – whatever the crap _that's_ supposed to mean – that it's not natural to people, that's it's just something we get drilled into us by our parents... but seriously, Rich: I'm _glad_ my Mom drilled it into me. It's kept me safe and sane so far. Or mostly sane." Laugh. "Mom _did_ say we're all a little bit crazy."

Talking with Felicia is a fascinating experience. She bounds with infinite energy from subject to subject, talking almost as much with her forepaws, ears, and tail as she does with her mouth. One minute she's laughing and gesticulating wildly; the next she's quiet, soft and serious, digging up another little gem of philosophy from some intellectual reserve that I keep forgetting she has. The little-girl voice and the aura of naivete are belied by the lifetime of experience she has to draw upon. She's not callow or gullible, I begin to understand; it's not childlike foolishness I sense, but openness – a guileless, absolute candor. It seems to be her preferred method of allaying the unease of others.

I think it's your honesty that does it, I suggest to her at one point. People can get comfortable around you because you don't hide anything.

"Nothin' _to_ hide," she says, confidently but without excess pride. "Nobody's more free than a girl with nothing to hide. Guilt and shame can't weigh you down if you haven't done anything to be ashamed or guilty _about_."

So that's all there is to it – being a goody-two-shoes? keeping a clean slate?

"Well, when you put it like that, yeah, of course it sounds totally square," she protests. "And it's not easy either, walkin' the straight-and-narrow... but it's _great_. It's like the song says: 'A heart that's light and a mind that's free' – I mean, that's what makes all the effort _worth_ it." She's quoting her third single (and first gold record), "Out Of Your Shell", the song that officially made her a star. "No weight on _my_ shoulders, Rich. Not now, not ever." I think I've told her I prefer to go by Rick, but Rich and Richie sound more natural on her lips.

We suddenly realize we're digressing from the point, and we move back to talking about her past. I'm not surprised to hear that she was bullied a little as a kid; children can be brutal to anyone among them who stands out too much. I _am_ mildly surprised to learn that she has never had a singing lesson in her life, and that she used to play around on the convent's piano when her fingers were still small enough to fit the keys. "That's how I found out I was a born songwriter," she says. "I didn't really understand what 'gifted' meant, or what 'talent' was. All I knew was: _dude_, this is what I was _born_ for. I've found the meaning of my life."

The end of the great masquerade happened while she was still in fourth grade – just as her classmates' parents were realizing that there was something bizarre about their kids _still_ coming home, after all these years, with weird stories about some shape-shifting imaginary friend who sometimes had blue hair and cat ears and sometimes didn't. _(**What** blue hair, honey? Your father and I have been in your classroom a dozen times and we've **never** seen a girl with blue hair...)_ Suddenly, the truth was out. Paranaturals could no longer hide, no longer pass themselves off as figments of someone's imagination – they were real. True, the reception might have been slightly smoother if the infamous Aensland sisters, over in Europe, had not been among the first to break the silence; the centuries of relaxed corruption and leisurely depravity to which they cheerfully admitted have put every paranatural since then under a cloud of suspicion, if not outright prejudice.

So naturally, all through her school years, the teasing got worse; parents kept insisting that their kids not be placed in the same class as the weird creature that the nuns were trying to pass off as a normal kid (goodness knows what she's got under that uniform); and none of the teachers would step up to defend poor Felicia from her classmates. Hell, they probably couldn't look her in the eye without thinking of Lillith Aensland and hearing "Don't Stand So Close To Me" playing in their heads.

It was rough, but it taught a young catgirl a valuable lesson: "People's minds aren't set in stone like you think they'd be. Seriously, Richie – a mind can be changed _so_ easily. It's so easy to make other people hate or fear. Not so easy to make 'em _love_... but it's way more rewarding."

She clasps one forepaw in the other. "Mom said we all have a choice; you can be a child of the dark, or a child of the light. So I made my choice. And y'know, it doesn't make a difference that I'm a night person – what's that term Morrigan used?"

For the paranaturals, you mean? She called you 'darkstalkers'.

Felicia grins. "Well, darkstalker I may be, but wherever I go I bring the light with me. My nights are bright nights. Full of starlight and moonlight and neon light..." She laughs yet again. "Damn, dude, _listen_ to me! All moons and stars and light and love. It sounds so naive and sappy, laying it out like that. Good grief, no wonder people call me childish."

But it's _not_ naive, is it? Not when you get right down to the bottom of it.

"No, it's not." Her voice is simultaneously solemn and cheerful. "Light and love are the most valuable things we have. When it's our time to go, they're the only things we can take along."

So Light and Love are your message, eh? Your mission statement, as it were.

Felicia tosses her head, her blue locks waving. "It'll do... We darkstalkers, we're not all creatures of darkness. That's what I set out to prove."

Which, again, is an understatement. The little-catgirl-who-could has done more than _anyone_ else, arguably, to destroy the bias against paranaturals and dispel the stigma associated with the label of darkstalker – and all just by being her own sweet, shining self.

And suddenly there's a change of subject. With a shrug of her elegant shoulders, Felicia the amateur philosopher disappears for the time being, and Felicia the party girl is back. "So how often do you get to come here, Richie?"

To Vegas? Not too much. This is my first time back in about five years, to tell you the truth.

"Myahh, really? Well, I'm in town all weekend. We're playing three shows here, tonight through Saturday." She reclines comfortably in her seat. "Me 'n Jon could show you around. Nobody knows this town better than I do."

Hmm. I appreciate the offer... But I saw your tour schedule about six months ago; I thought you were doing _four_ shows in Vegas. Change of plans?

"Yeah, we talked it over and decided it wasn't a good idea. All our fans coming in to work tired and hungover on a Monday, not good. Besides–" she flicks her tail – "Sunday night's a full moon. I need Jonny around, but he won't work on a full moon. He's a great guy, I love him to death, but he's, um... a little funny about some things. Guess you'd call him superstitious."


	2. Pages 3–7

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Most of the non-fictional songs quoted or covered here are easily found on Youtube. Lyrics are of course (c) their respective composers.)_

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[Pages 3-7]

* * *

You know how you'll hear some incredible new singer or band, and you'll talk to your friends and acquaintances about it? And it's usually the insufferable hipster, the one who makes a point of knowing a little about _everything_ (and of being cynical about it, too), the guy about whom you sometimes wonder why you're still friends, who always delivers the sentence of ultimate condemnation: "Nah, I hear they _suck_ live."

And it's almost like a curse: every one of your favorite bands, when you go to hear them live – it turns out a lot of them _do_ suck. Not that they're uniformly AWFUL, it's just that their live sound doesn't compare to their last album. Maybe they're having an off night, maybe they really need to fire their damned sound guy, maybe they need a studio environment in order to sound the way they want to sound... but anyhow, they don't quite live up to expectations.

A Felicia show is not like that.

One is relieved and overjoyed to find the occasional exception to the rules, a musical act that sounds even _better_ live; these are the shows that one brags about having seen for years afterward. And seeing Felicia is worth bragging about... The facts are really quite basic: if you haven't heard her live, _you haven't heard her_.

* * *

It's ten minutes to showtime at The Joint, and the place is packed. Strictly SRO. Peeping out from the stage-right wings, where I'm standing among about a dozen busy roadies, I realize that the Fire Marshal would crap solid-gold _bricks_ if he saw this room – there's far more than four thousand people here. They've taken every seat in the balcony. The VIP boxes along both sides are full of older, richer people who have paid formidable amounts for those seats; not one of them is paying the least attention to the luxury-suite amenities. They've already gotten the drinks they ordered and are now gazing intently toward the stage, bare except for the drum kit, the keyboards, the amps and the monitors (and the occasional roadie re-checking the connections). The general-admission "seating" is crammed full of people like sardines in a tin; the upper decks behind the floor and full of people who want a good vantage point and don't mind standing. Some of them are looking, curious, into the mixing-board pit in the middle of the general admission area, from which the sound and lighting men (most of them; Jon-or-John will remain on standby in the wings) will direct the show; I see the chief live producer, Vincent Truro, making a few last-minute checks. The open floor is a sea of milling humanity.

The crowd is divided just about evenly into males and females – the former are here because she's hot, the latter because she's awesome. Most of them, at a glance, I'd peg between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five; there are a few over-thirties in the audience, although most of them are up in the balcony. I can also see that one of the prime tables in the stage-left VIP box – the table nearest the stage itself – is occupied by an obviously married couple, in tie-dyed T-shirts and matching sets of Ray-Bans, who couldn't possibly be a day under fifty. Behind me, I can hear Jon barking a last few orders, and the members of the band tuning their instruments. I whip out my camera and sneak a few shots of the crowd, then go back behind the curtains and position myself on a nearby folding chair.

Five minutes. The air, to use a cliche, is electric. There's been no opening act to warm up the house; it's a solo bill tonight. I suspect, though, that they'll be able to win this crowd over quite easily... if they haven't, in fact, been won over already just by coming here.

Two minutes. The roadies are giving the stage one final checkup, plugging in the guitars and placing them on their stands, when the house lights begin to dim – the universal big-venue Hold On To Your Butts signal. Whoops and cheers erupt from the audience. The last thing visible to their eyes, before everything fades, is the last roadie (Jon himself) entering with a mic stand and a somewhat oversized wireless microphone, and setting it down front-and-center-stage.

The backdrop is dimly illuminated, a field of dark blue on which threads of paler blue light coalesce and glimmer psychedelically. The crowd is not quite to the point of rushing the stage, but the poor front row behind the rail are starting to _really_ look like sardines in a tin; faintly visible before the rail are the yellow shirts of the security personnel, imploring those behind to make space. There's just barely enough room between the stage and the crowd for the security men to walk, or to pull someone to safety in the event of a near-suffocation up front.

The buzz from the floor becomes cheers, whistles and frantic applause as the black silhouettes of the musicians saunter on stage. The drummer is first – **Jared Palevsky**, a beefy young man with a frazzled goatee and a pork-pie hat apparently glued to his head (he'll be doing a lot of headbanging behind his kit, but at no point in the evening does it come off). Then the bassist, **Dominick Minnuzzi**, and his rhythm-guitarist wife **Akiko**. Lead guitar is **Tyler Elvin**, who sweeps his red hair out of his face excitedly as he passes me, white Gibson SG in hand. Finally comes **Evan Chuang**, keyboardist, pianist, saxophonist and all-around cool guy, carrying his horn with him... and percussionist **Kevin Trilby Sharp**, his shaven head a sharp contrast to his dark Ernest Hemingway beard even in this low light.

The cheering from the house covers up most of the tuning-up noises, but there's little tuning up to do anyhow; Jon's soundchecks have been impeccably diligent. (Speaking of which, Jon's disappeared, but Vincent is hunched over his mixing board in the middle of the crowd, grinning like a madman.) Then Palevsky runs a quick roll down his toms, and the noise dies down to a dull roar. There's still clapping and whistling as he counts off a steady four with his drumsticks; he begins playing a sixteenth-note pattern on his hi-hats, and Dominick begins strumming a low B on his bass. They're opening, as always, with "Out Of Your Shell".

The audience goes wild again as another figure enters, a shape hidden by an amorphous hooded coat. The new shape proceeds directly to center stage and stands, motionless, before the microphone. Jared and Dom continue the riff as long as it takes for the audience noise to begin dying down – and suddenly Jared plays a climactic two-bar snare run...

Bass and drums cut out, replaced by Evan's piano. With perfect timing (honed at show after show) a single, narrow white spotlight falls on the head and shoulders of the figure at center stage, and from under the hood a voice emerges. It's a voice we in the room have all heard before, but there's something shocking about hearing it live and in person. A sweet, tinkling, chiming bell of a voice. In a split second, the applause and cheering and whistling come to a dead stop. I've never seen that happen at a live show before... But now, everybody wants to hear. Is _compelled_ to hear.

It starts off soft at first, but as it negotiates the first verse of "Out Of Your Shell" the voice grows ever louder and stronger, as if gaining confidence. Then comes the first chorus, and the bass and drums re-enter behind the piano and the voice.

_'Cuz every one's got a story to tell..._ Suddenly, the hood's thrown back. A flash of blue hair, fuzzy white ears, and a fifteen-kilowatt smile. _So don't be afraid to come out of your shell!_ she finishes triumphantly.

And **POW**, the rest of the stage lights come up, and **THOOM**, the whole band breaks in, and **RRRIP**, Felicia flings the coat aside and grabs the mic, and all of a sudden she's not just a shape and a voice any more, it's The World's One And Only Catgirl Pop Star, her white tail and long blue hair flying behind her as she pirouettes on the stage. Cue screaming from the gallery, along with cheering, whooping, whistles and frenzied applause. Two thousand fans rush the stage, but not quite hard enough to mash the first row up against the rail.

"Out Of Your Shell" is a perfect slice of psychedelic dancerock, and it isn't long before the audience are clapping to the beat and singing along, although not loudly enough to drown her out. It's no wonder Felicia is in such good physical shape; she's a singing, dancing dynamo. Twisting and leaping like a gymnast, reaching her free hand out to the audience – and not hitting a single flat note the whole time.

Homegirl knows how to work a room, I'll give her that.

The audience is ecstatic as the song finishes. Felicia is more than ecstatic: she's _electrified_. I thought she was lively enough in the dressing room, but there's even more energy in her now... you can almost see her emitting sparks like a Tesla coil. I've never seen anyone look more alive than Felicia looks in front of a packed hall of adoring fans.

There's a couple minutes of banter from Felicia as the crowd cools down. She talks, with great animation and total sincerity, about her love for her hometown; somebody in the audience shouts "We love you too, kitten!", and the cry is taken up throughout the house: "We love you, Felicia!" "We love you, Felicia!" She squeals with laughter at that, and the crowd laughs with her. Her mirth is infectious.

The next two songs are covers I don't recognize, but Felicia puts as much heart into them as if they'd always been hers. The band are more than game, and the audience eat it up, hanging on every note. The first is an old, Eighties-sounding track. The second cover is a soulful one, a la Sixties R&B – the kind of music Sister Cecilia used to love, if her foster daughter's claims are accurate. And I'm stunned by the changes her voice goes through. Hers is a crystalline chime of a voice, with no real soul-sistah bluesy brass in it; how such a sweet voice can remain sweet while it gains enough driving force to _BLOW YOUR HAIR TO THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM_ I can't imagine. It's a complete paradox, but it's happening right in front of me, and it is _glorious_. As she struts back and forth along the edge of the stage, belting out the tune, I can almost see the thrill running through the audience. Kitty got _soul_.

Then it's back to her original material, with another early bubblegum-style hit, "(It Ain't Easy But) It's Simple"; the kids in the crowd scream for it when they recognize the opening guitar riff, and everybody's dancing in less than two minutes. She follows it up with three tracks off her latest album, By Starlight We Walk. Three completely different kinds of pop music, and she shifts through them like a chameleon of song and dance: aggressively acrobatic on "Whatever You Want" – even jumping up on the percussionist's riser to play dueling congas with Trilby; sexy and seductive to go with the funkified style of "Purr" (Evan playing sax, Dom & Tyler singing backing vocals); flawless J-pop choreography for the hyperactive "Tonight's Her Night". It's hard to believe that all three songs are performed by the same girl.

Following this is a trio of covers from a band Felicia credits as a tremendous influence. "We haven't played this stuff live before, and I don't sing them anywhere near as well as _they_ sing them," she tells the audience while Akiko trades her Strat for a wired acoustic, "so please, guys, do yourselves a favor and look 'em up." I haven't heard of The Apples In Stereo before tonight, but I'll take her recommendation. I set down my camera to make a quick note.

The songs she sings are right up her alley: blissful, psychedelic pop-rock. She floats her voice gently, gracefully, over the music. Onlooking, we're all captivated. There's something about the way she sings these songs that leaves me, at least, with a sizable lump in my throat.

Previously, talking backstage, we got into asking each other what we thought was the "purpose" of music. Does it _need_ to have a purpose? I said. Can't it just be art for art's sake?

"Nah, I don't think so," she told me. "Really great art – good music, good books, good paintings, good movies – they always _do_ something to you, whether or not that's what they meant to do. They make you feel good. Actually, it's even better than that; they, like, _lift you up_. They give you a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away." She smiled wider. "And a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what that Big Something is: my Mom had her ideas; I got mine; dude, even you've probably got your own. But when I'm up on stage and singing my heart out, I know I'm part of it. Or maybe it's, like, the other way around – that there's a part of it inside me... And either way, I'm like: oh, _wow_, I can FEEL it, and I wanna make everybody ELSE feel it too."

* * *

And perhaps I _am_ starting to feel it, from where I'm standing. There's some kind of mystical connection developing in the music, an intangible thing shared between the musicians on stage and the mass of people watching them. It's not an easy trick to pull off; I've seen a hundred acts who have tried to do the same, and only a handful who succeeded. Felicia has always claimed that she's no great shakes as a 'paranatural', that she doesn't have any special powers outside of the occasional shapeshift, but I'll be damned if this isn't some kind of spell she's casting on all of us.

The connection only deepens further when, out of nowhere, the last Apples cover (a track called, of all things, "Strawberryfire") segues seamlessly into another cover tune – "Dear Prudence", the Beatles song that helped put her second album in the gold. Felicia puts the microphone back onto its stand, opens her arms as if in welcome, and sings:

_Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play / Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day_

_The sun is up, the sky is blue / It's beautiful and so are you / Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play..._

Her tail whips lazily back and forth behind her, her hips sway a little to the rhythm, her eyes are closed. Vincent's lighting tech is a virtuoso; the lights shining down on Felicia illuminate her with a golden glow, her white fur turning warm summer colors. We're hypnotized by her body, spellbound by her voice; we're being _played_ like a pipe organ, and we know it – and we're loving every second of it. By the end of the song, the entire floor is swaying back and forth together, and the audience have become her backing vocalists. About two hundred lighters have come out of various pockets and are being held in the air, making the room look like a pond full of floating candles.

I think I'm beginning to understand a little of what's going on here. The folks who talk about her music being 'slick' or 'customized for public consumption' are talking gibberish. All they see are the words "pop" or "label deal" or "superstar", and they leap to conclusions about what it is they think she's doing; they think that all pop music is soulless and all pop musicians are sellouts. They couldn't be further from the truth. Felicia's never been tempted by the trappings of fame, because they've got nothing to do with why she wanted to be famous. She didn't want specifically to be a celebrity, or to make millions of dollars a year, although those _are_ nice side benefits. She's in it for the music, and for the fans... but not in the way most musicians are "in it for the fans". No, you see, Felicia has a gift that she wants to share with the world, one packed house at a time.

She can get people _high_ on music. She can _lift you up_ with her voice. When you hear her singing live, you get the uncanny feeling that she's singing _for you_ – that she knows you're listening and wants to make _you_ happy, in some small way. And after she's gone, you are certain that you've witnessed something special, something that will occupy a warm spot in your heart for ages to come. You've caught a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away.

And if that's not how you feel – if you can listen and not hear her heart beating in her music – then she's not for you. Shame, really.

* * *

Tonight, she plays a two-and-a-half-hour set. No opening act, no breaks of more than a few minutes. Her gang on stage run through practically every song from every one of her albums, and fill the spaces between with the music of other bands and singers that inspired her. I can only imagine how grueling it is for the band; they're clearly a bit tired by the end of it, although still having fun and still playing everything right. (Drummer Palevsky is the only one who genuinely looks haggard, but his hat has still not fallen off.) But Felicia? It's as though she hasn't even broken a sweat. She's still going: dancing like a maniac, singing like an angel, laughing like a little girl, tossing the mic playfully from hand to hand, and trying her hardest to pull the audience up and out of themselves.

And if she has to get them to laugh in order to shake them up, she will; she asks for a show of hands to see how many audience members have played a certain video game that premiered less than six months ago. About nine hundred people raise their hands. "How many of you beat it?" she says. Only a hundred hands come down – including hers. "Dude, _seriously?_ You friggin' liars!" she laughs. "Okay, then! This is a song we've been working on since we first played the game. Now I haven't settled on the lyrics yet, so it's probably not gonna be showing up on any albums for a while... so I guess this is, like, an exclusive sneak peek. Ready?" She points to Jared, who counts them off into the new track: a stomping, shredding, gleefully absurd piece of hard-rock bliss called "Gordon Freeman Saved My Life", with twin lead vocals by Felicia and Dominick.

Minds are blown. Felicia can sing, Felicia can dance, Felicia's got soul, and nobody in this room will now deny that Felicia can **RAWK**. Not to mention she can headbang, which looks truly impressive with that massive, fluffy blue mane.

About ten minutes later, she does something that she's warned me she was going to do at least once tonight. Right in the middle of her song "Truthseeker" she leaves the microphone stand, walks up to the very edge of the stage, smiling archly at the front row... then leaps off the stage, right over the heads of the security guys. A sea of hands rises up to catch her; she lands on her back atop the first few rows of the crowd. Her arms are flung wide and welcoming, and I see the kids practically blushing as their hands brush against her soft forepaws. Felicia, laughing, rides the audience in a long, counterclockwise ellipse that reaches all the way to the back of the floor – the first time I've ever seen a full-length crowdsurf. The band patiently continue vamping over the song's chord progression, and Evan takes advantage of the delay to improvise a keyboard solo. I lean out of the wings to snap a few shots. By the time she gets back to the front-row rail, some three-fifths of the audience have carried her for at least a second or two. The security guys aid her with the dismount, and she lands in their trench beyond the rail. She's only down there for the blink of an eye; she hurls herself back up on stage, returns to the microphone, and triumphantly finishes the song without the least hint of being out of breath.

How do you do it? I remember asking her.

"What do you mean?"

Well, I said, how do you get the courage to throw yourself at your audience like that? Don't you ever get your hair yanked, your tail pulled, your _ears_ pulled? Hands going places they shouldn't go? I mean, no offense, but these kids have essentially got a hot, half-naked catgirl jumping on top of them...

"Getting stuff yanked on? Mm, yeah, it happens once in a while, but it's mostly people who don't think any of _this_ is real." She pensively looked at her hand/paw, flexing her fingers. Her ears flapped slightly. "Best argument against that is to get up close and let 'em see the proof for themselves. But I've never had anyone, like, actually perv-out on me, if that's what you mean. Probably just luck, but I find my shows don't really attract that kind of person."

No, it's more than just luck, I think from my vantage point just offstage. She's a magnet, attracting positive energies and repelling the negative ones. Oh, believe me, I know how effing New-Age that sounds, but in the altered state of consciousness into which she's pulled me it makes perfect sense. It explains, better than anything else I can think of at that moment, her astonishingly unbroken and unblemished record of success. The people who hate her the most won't even go near her; the people most likely to take advantage of her (of her spirit, of her body, of her talent, of her trust) are repulsed by the thought of actually approaching her. There's something about her unrelenting positivity that defeats them, disgusts them so utterly that even the idea of breaking that positivity seems pointless to them. The people who would be happiest to see Felicia in tears have decided it isn't worth the sweat of their brows to make it happen; their very contempt has rendered them powerless over her.

And meanwhile, these _other_ people have come to see her, have packed The Joint to capacity, because there's something about her that calls to them – or something inside themselves that is instinctively drawn to her. Watching the show, I know _exactly_ what it is, but I temporarily lack the vocabulary to identify it. All I manage to scribble in my notebook is a single phrase: "Heart calls to heart." I know, even as I write it, that it's not sufficiently explanatory, and that when the time comes to write my article I'll have forgotten what I meant; nevertheless, there are about a dozen possible shades of meaning within it – most of which do apply.

And suddenly, in the space between songs, her voice rings out: "Hey, Jared! _You_ sing one!"

"You know I can't sing," Jared Palevsky shouts from behind his kit.

"Myahh, c'mon, just one? Dude, don't be embarrassed..." The audience laughs and applauds. This, word for word, is the snippet of studio chatter that opened the second-to-last track on her second album; Felicia is quoting herself exactly, right down to her tone of voice.

"Which one?"

"That Money Mark cover thing. You sing it better than me, man! _I_ could play drums for you, if that's what you want – Hey, guys," she says, breaking from the expected script to address the fans below. "Sing this one along with us!" (Felicia in fact _did_ play a modified drum kit on the song in question.)

The kids applaud. Jared sighs in mock exasperation as Jon comes out with a mic stand and sets it up for him. He blows into the microphone a few times to test it, then does a slow count-off into the laid-back, almost melancholy groove of "I Don't Play Piano." Evan backs him up with the familiar keyboard riff.

Felicia doesn't sing lead on this one – what she does instead is set her mic down, then proceed to conduct the audience in their performance, while Jared too performs in an endearingly awkward tenor.

_I don't know how to play piano / I don't know how to sing / I do know how to collect my dreams / Oh oh oh_

_I've read all the books on those matters / I tore out the pages I liked / I don't know how to run, I only know how to fight / Oh oh oh oh oh_

The song soars into its chorus, the guitars rising up. Felicia has the crowd waving their arms back and forth, like a sea of reeds. Her lips are moving to the words of the song, but over Jared's amplified voice and the voices of the audience, no one can hear her without her microphone.

_Teach me all these things, I need to know it / Turn all my pages, I need to show it / I need the laughter and I need the pain / Won't you tell me how I can do it all again..._

At those lines, Felicia leaps off the stage _again_, her arms spread wide. Her admirers catch her and bear her up, and she begins to crowdsurf the room again. She floats off toward the back of the house, and there's enough light back there for us up front to see her face – I can tell that she's still singing along. As she passes over them, the audience members begin to sing louder, backing Jared's own voice up.

_I don't know how to play piano / I don't know how to sing / I do know how to collect my dreams / Oh oh oh oh oh_

_I spill my drink all over the table / But I trust all the moments I live / And then I receive back all the things that I give / Oh oh oh..._

Now Jared stops singing completely. The band reduce their volume and let the kids on the floor carry the rest of the song (just as they're carrying Felicia) – four thousand voices joined in one melody. The funny thing is, I think I can hear one very strong voice out there, rising above the rest of the crowd, and I'm pretty sure it's Felicia's.

_Teach me all these things, I need to know it / Turn all my pages, I need to show it / I need the laughter and I need the pain / Won't you tell me how I can do it all again_

_I don't know how to play piano / I don't know how to sing / I do know how to collect my dreams / Oh oh oh oh oh_

_I only know how to fight / I only know how to fight / I only know how to fight / I only know how to fight..._

The song ends with Felicia on her return trip, still a few feet from the front of the hall. Somehow, she summons up enough leverage to execute a jackknife leap from the shoulders of the crowd back into the security trench, and in a split second she's back on stage. "Wow, guys," she gushes. "We _had_ it just now, man. You really _got_ it..." It's not certain what she means, but her eyes are glimmering – with tears of joy or tears of parting?

Perhaps both; she makes the sad announcement that the next will be the last song of the night. Sounds of disappointment and cries of "Oh, not _now!_" and "Don't go!" emanate from various corners of the room. "Myahh, I'm sorry, but there's only so much we can play in one night... So," she grins, "we saved the best for last!" And they roll into the opening of "Catching Stars", the closing title track from her third album.

It's a Brian Wilsonesque, seven-minute pop aria that reminds me of nothing so much as "Champagne Supernova." Hearing it live for the first time, the word that comes to mind is 'epic'. The band play it note-perfect, and Felicia sings her heart out. The music seems to lift her up even more than the rest of us, as if she's levitating above our heads. The audience, the band, and the singer are united in the song.

The cheers and applause when the song reaches its end are almost deafening. "Thank you!" Felicia cries out. She beckons for the band to come up to the front of the stage with her; they all lock arms and bow, like actors taking a curtain call. Felicia waves one last time and skips off stage, followed by the other musicians. Coming into the wings, she spots me and steps over. "So what'd you think?" she shouts over the crowd noise.

Awesome! I shout back. (She cocks an ear at me to hear better.) I _said_, awesome! You knocked 'em dead!

The applause isn't dying down; if anything, it only grows louder. The cry goes up from the balcony: "Encore!" and the kids on the floor take it up, shouting "Encore!"

So _are_ you giving them an encore? I shout.

"Of course we are! But we like making 'em wait for it – I think they feel more like they've _earned_ it that way, you know what I mean?"

Everybody hovers in the wings for another minute or so, listening to the voices from the house. Now they're _chanting_ it. _"__**ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!**__"_ Felicia huddles in a brief conference with the others, after which they head back toward the stage. "We're doing 'Energy'," Felicia says to me as she passes.

The chanting dissolves into cheering as the lights come back up and the band takes the stage again. "Okay," Felicia laughs, "you talked us into it... Hit it!" And Akiko strums the opening chords of "Energy". You'd think the crowd would be to tired to go wild yet again, but somehow they do. Felicia skips across the stage as she sings:

_And the world is made of energy / And the world is electricity / And the world is made of energy / And there's a light inside of you and there's a light inside of me_

_And the world is made of energy / And the world is synchronicity / And the world is made of energy / And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me_

_It's gonna be / All right / It's gonna be all right, uh huh yeah / We're gonna see / The sunlight / We're gonna see the sunlight, oh ho yeah_

The musicians join in on backing vocals. The lyrics are upbeat and a little silly – as with most of the songs we've heard tonight, frankly. One can understand why Felicia's more savage critics call her songwriting banal and unserious. But when this catgirl sings them, the words ring true; they seem to sum her up perfectly. And besides, what's the point of it all if you can't be a little unserious once in a while?

_And the world (And the world) is made of energy / And the world (And the world) is possibility / And the world (And the world) is made of energy / And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me..._

After that one, they give the kids in the audience a moment to catch their breath (although the kids are too busy screaming for more to catch their breath, really) – then abruptly break into one last, unexpected tune, Devo's "Girl U Want". Dom and Akiko are both dancing, skanking with their guitars still in hand; there's just barely enough room on the floor to actually dance, but I can see some of the audience members trying to do the skank as well. The rest are just pogoing, clapping, and watching their heroine sing and dance, her tail whipping playfully behind her.

"Thank you!" Felicia cries out at the end of it all, as the house lights go up. "Thank you, thank you, thank you _so_ much!" She takes one final bow with the band. "Love ya, Vegas! Good night!" she says, blows a kiss, and bounces off stage.

* * *

I'll be damned, I say to them backstage. I haven't been to a show that good in a _long_ time. I take a sip of the Pepsi that Akiko's offered me. What a way to end a night, I continue.

"Hey, the night's not over," Felicia says, throwing her arm around Jon's shoulders. "Opening night after-party, anyone? We've got VIP spots reserved at the club." (She's referring to the Hard Rock Hotel's own nightclub, Body English.)

Jared pleads out: "Nah, I need the rest. I'm going up to my room and packing my arms in ice." Everyone else, though, appears to be open to it – including Jon, whose manner has softened significantly. Felicia turns to me. "So how 'bout you, Rich? Coming along?"

If I can. I don't know if they'll let me in with you just with a 'Backstage: Press' pass, though, I say (fingering the ID card on the lanyard about my neck).

"Myaah, it's no big deal, we can just tell 'em you're with the band."

"I'll tell you what we can do," Jon says. He takes a card from his pocket. "I've only a few of these with me; I don't hand them out very often..." He produces a large Sharpie, scribbles a signature on the back of the card, and hands it to me with his rascally grin. The top half is decorated with the tour logo, and the bottom half reads: **VIP All Access Thursday Friday Saturday**. "You won't have to hang about waiting for us all weekend."

Well, thank you, Jon, that's a _helluva_ favor. What's this for? Hope you're not trying to bribe me into writing a positive story.

He chuckles darkly. "I've been standing next to you all night; somehow I doubt you need to be _bribed_. But we think you can be _trusted_."

"Damn right," says the catgirl hanging off his shoulder. "C'mon, dude. We'll buy you a drink or three."

Well, I wouldn't say no to that.

* * *

Jon and Vincent retain a few vestiges of their usual stuffy, professional manner until they see me finally stowing my notebook and minicorder in my pockets; after that, they become more casual. Though that may not be quite the right word in Jon's case; he's of that particular British model that is never entirely casual, even around good friends – but it appears to me that this is about as unreserved as he can possibly get. He and Felicia are chatting contentedly as our procession (one casino host leading five musicians, two sound guys, one journalist, and one catgirl) makes its way around the edges of the casino floor; four hotel security men are clearing a path for us. This last is an unfortunate necessity. A lot of celebrities can go relatively incognito in Vegas: you catch them out of the corner of your eye for a moment, then you look away, and when you wonder "Hey, wasn't that...?" and look back, they're gone. Not so with Felicia; she's a little too easy to recognize for her own good. If she catches your eye, you look and keep on looking. There's no "Hey, I wonder if that was..." It's more like "Hey – oh wow, holy crap, it _is_ her!"

The casino isn't entirely buzzing with activity at 11:25 p.m. on a Thursday, but there are still plenty of people hanging around, the majority of them casual gamblers in their thirties and forties. Not too many in the 21-to-25 age group (half of the absolute hard core of Felicia's fandom, the other half consisting of those too young to get into this nightclub legally), but every time we pass a highly populated area, like one of the bars, there are plenty of people saying "Hey, isn't that...?", followed by squeals of excitement; there's always at least one well-dressed young thing who drops what she's doing and rushes up to the security men, asking if she can get an autograph. Jon tends to keep his XXL Sharpie marker at the ready for times like these, prepared to hand it off to his boss/girlfriend at a moment's notice.

Eventually we reach the club. The usual Thursday-night house-music party is taking a month off, so it's not as full as it might otherwise have been; it's a New Wave night, though, so a lot of people (the club's regulars, I presume) have stuck around. There's still a line out front of the place. We, of course, skip it – our host directs us straight to the door. We hear gasps and cheers as we stroll down the other side of the velvet rope, and a lot of people shouting Felicia's name. She waves and blows kisses. The doorman, displaying a killer instinct, almost stops me from going in with the rest – how I could _visibly_ stand out from them, I can't guess – but a little bluffing and superstar charm removes any remaining impediments.

Mercifully, half the people on the dance floor are too busy digging the music to notice us, so we're not mobbed as soon as we enter. The casino host speaks to one of the personnel inside, and we're led through an obstacle course of people to the VIP box. It's plush as hell but not thickly populated; the big spenders usually don't show up before midnight, and the bigger spenders won't even be in town until Friday. Nevertheless, there's a few handfuls of richniks up there, observing the dance floor through the mirror-glass wall that runs along one end. Several of them are in the music business; at least one or two of them are personally acquainted with Felicia, and the rest are pleased to make her acquaintance. There's one guy, though – a producer, I'm told – who rolls his eyes and glances away with disgust when he sees us walking in. Fifteen minutes later he's nowhere to be seen. I don't know what his malfunction is, but I suspect he's got issues with either paranaturals or bubblegum rockers.

The nine of us huddle comfortably in an expansive booth; there's room enough for all of us to kick our legs up on the low table, or perch cross-legged on the seat as Felicia does. The host asks us if we want any champagne for the table, a question met with head-shaking. These folks don't drink champagne. The host says he can arrange our order, and asks what precisely we want; most of the band members ask for various beers, except Akiko, who queries as to whether there's any cider. The club does indeed have Strongbow on tap – my own favorite tipple, as well, so the order goes up to two Strongbows. The VIP area does require that your table buy at least two whole bottles of something, so Vincent and Jon ask for scotch and soda, and leave the scotch. Last comes Felicia, who asks for a night's worth of White Russians. "Russians with Baileys?" the host asks. I am not the least surprised by the reply: "No, thanks, I'd prefer _milk_." (The platter of drinks, when it finally comes, has a full bottle of Grey Goose, a full bottle of Kahlua, a pail of ice, and a very large carafe of milk. The glee in Felicia's eyes is unmistakable.)

The night passes for us in a pleasant, euphoric haze of drinking, joking, and occasionally singing along to the music in the background. Several people come over to shake Felicia's hand and pay their respects; a few of them were actually at the show earlier. A well-known guitarist and his brother make an appearance at our table, and I wasn't expecting to be introduced to them thusly: "And this is my good friend, Richie; he's a writer for InTheMix."

After they're gone, I lean in and ask her: What was that about? You could've just said "This guy's doing an article on me for InTheMix." I'm flattered and all, but – what'd you mean by "good friend"?

Felicia fixes me with a smile so winsome that it would end the country's depression epidemic if you could bottle it. "Who says we _ain't_ friends?"

Me, for one. I just met you today, didn't I?

She laughs. "Myahh, Rich – that's more than enough time to make a friend." She reaches out and puts her paw down on top of my hand. "I'd be honored to be friends with such a smart guy." I protest that I'm not all _that_ smart, especially not now that I've got three pints of cider seeping into my system; she just shakes her head. "All right, if it makes you happy we'll do it all official-like. Richard, will you be friends with me?"

Absolutely, I say. She raises her paw. "Shake on it?"

We shake on it, my hand amusingly dwarfed by hers. "And now that we're friends," she goes on, "I can trust you with a secret: The video truck's coming on Saturday." She giggles at my mystified face. "You know, a _video_ truck? We're _taping the show_, Rich!" she says, bouncing giddily in her seat. "I've always wanted to put out a live album, and the label finally decided to spring for it. The Saturday show's gonna be _it_ – and we're gonna turn it into a DVD, too! Tonight was a kind of dress-rehearsal thing, if you know what I mean; we're gonna be doing pretty much the same setlist. And since you – hey, wait, is that...?" Her attention suddenly strays for a moment; her ears are cocked, listening – until she bursts out in a hysterical guffaw, pointing above us to the nearest speaker. The DJ is spinning Devo's "Girl U Want." "_Damn_ it!" she laughs. "That jerk, he stole my closer!"

I kind of lost you for a second. What was that last part?

She takes a sip of her White Russian. "I was gonna say, since you've got a pass for all three nights, I'd love to see you there for the _big_ one. Heck, you can come out on stage and play Trilby's tambourine if you wanna..."

No, that's okay, I'm a horrendous musician. But I'll be there for the show, I promise.

"Sure thing. Oughta write it up for your article, y'know?"

My next pint of cider arrives just then. My subsequent memories of the evening will be hazy.

* * *

**_(to be continued)_**

_(PS. The last song quoted is in fact also by the Apples, but it would be rather anachronistic to suggest it's a cover. In my world, THEIRS is the cover version.)_

[Out Of Your Shell: Lyrics by Felicia (c) Unique Calico Recordings

Dear Prudence: Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney (c) EMI, Apple Corps

I Don't Play Piano: Lyrics by Mark Ramos Nishita (c) MoWax / A&M Records Ltd. London

Energy: Lyrics by Robert Schneider (c) Simian Records / YepRoc]


	3. Pages 8–11

[Pages 8–11]

* * *

Friday. I am rather hung over this morning, waking up in a less expensive hotel a block down the street. The phone rings shortly before ten o'clock, as I'm swallowing a few ibuprofen.

"Mornin', Richie."

Felicia? Well, hell, good morning to _you_. How'd you get this number?

"You gave it to me last night. Well, you gave me your room number and the name of your hotel, so..."

Ah, I see. I don't remember that.

"Myahh, well, we were both pretty wasted by that point," she laughs. "I was thinking – have you eaten yet?"

No, I haven't. Why?

"Well, I was about to have room service send breakfast up here. If you want to come over and have something to eat, we can talk a little more for that article of yours..."

* * *

About a half-hour later, I'm walking up the front drive of the Hard Rock, my camera hanging from my neck and my satchel of equipment slung over my shoulder; Jon collects me at the entrance and escorts me to the elevators. I ask him, doesn't she _live_ here? What're you doing staying in the hotel?

"Well, the whole process of filming the concert is going to be rather complicated. We decided to stay on site to prepare for the big event – to supervise the proceedings, as it were... She may talk lightly, but I can assure you she's dead serious about this business."

The suite he leads me to is sumptuous but not overly large, befitting its status as merely a temporary base of operations. When we walk in, there are about a dozen people scattered around the place, most of them techs or secretaries of one kind or another. Vincent Truro is flipping through the channels on the big-screen TV; sitting with him on the couch is a red-headed man I don't recognize, introduced to me as Gerry Campbell. I'm told that he's been tapped by Felicia's label to supervise the filming of the concert, and the name strikes a familiar chord – he directed two music videos for Felicia's last album.

The room is equipped with a billiard table, but nobody's playing pool. The table is instead partially covered with a sheet; Felicia is sitting on top of it, wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe. She sits cross-legged as always, hunched over her breakfast tray, her tail bobbing contentedly behind her. Everyone else in the room is drinking coffee (Jon takes out a hip flask and adds a shot of something to his), but she's having milk, drinking it directly out of the carafe. There are already two empty carafes on the tray.

She's absorbed in finishing a large slab of ham, but her ears perk up when she hears me speaking to Gerry. "Rich! Grab some coffee and pull up a seat!"

I comply, retrieving one of the stools from the wetbar and settling in next to the pool table. So what's cooking this morning? I ask. "Oh, nothin' much. We're probably gonna be here all day, so if you wanna stick around and get a look at how we're setting up, feel free."

Thanks for the offer. Hope you don't mind me bringing my camera along.

"Myahh, that's fine. So where do you wanna start today?"

I take out my minicorder. I'm not sure what to say to that, I reply to her – I forget where exactly we left off last night. Although I _was_ going to ask you one question that we kind of got sidetracked away from: _Why_ Vegas? What is it about _this_ place, above all others, that calls you to it? From the way you were talking last night, I can only imagine there's more to it than the fact that you were raised here... What makes Las Vegas your _home?_

She raises one blue eyebrow. "Did your family move a lot when you were a kid?"

Yep. Army brat, me.

"Ah. I guess it might be a little difficult for you to understand, then." She pauses, regarding me with something like pity. "Personally, I don't know how anybody can live the first eighteen years of their life in one place and _not_ get attached to it... Actually, I've kinda got, like, a story about that. You wanna hear it?" Absolutely, I tell her.

She takes a sip of milk (more like a gulp, really) and begins. "Myahh, well, here goes. I didn't get out much when I was a kid, a really young kid I mean; I had a pretty strict curfew. Mom always said I had to be indoors by nine, and I was always indoors by nine, obedient little kitty that I was... But around the time I turned thirteen, I stopped _staying_ indoors, if you know what I mean. My mom and all my aunties always went to bed around ten o'clock, so I'd wait till real late when they were asleep, and then I'd open the window and sneak out. My bedroom was on the bottom floor, so I didn't have to climb down any trellises or anything like that. Just pop out, shut the window behind me – leave it just open enough to get a claw in when I came back – and hop the fence.

"And I'd just go strolling through the neighborhood around the convent, man. I'd do it every night during the summer – that's when it was best, 'cuz I didn't need a coat. Wearing regular clothes always made me friggin' itch – still kinda does," she says, shrugging the bathrobe back off her shoulders. "So on summer nights I'd go out in just my fur, and it'd feel wonderful.

"God, I loved it so much: the stars at night, the big yellow streetlights, the crickets chirping, the good old streets, the feel of the night air on my skin. And I walked those streets and those alleys so much that if you took me back there and dropped me off at some random corner with a blindfold on, I'll bet ya I could still find my way home just by the feel of the pavement under my paws... So I'd go out as far as the park and lay myself down on the grass and watch the sky. I'd lie there, looking up at the moon and the stars, humming little songs to myself, and I'd feel, like, at peace with everything. Sometimes I'd hop up somebody's tree and sit way up on a branch, watching the lights flashing downtown... and I'd get to feeling like the whole town, everything I could see, was _mine_."

Wait. You were in a public park? Age thirteen, by yourself, in the middle of the night? Seems rather fortunate to me that you didn't get, well...

She nods. "Well, yeah, _now_ I know the risk I was taking. But I've always been pretty friggin' strong for my size – and I've always had _these_," she smirks, wiggling the fingers of one hand demonstratively, her claws gleaming (her _hot-pink_ claws; it comes to me that she must spend a fortune on nail polish). "And besides–" her ears twitch – "if there _was_ anyone I could always hear 'em coming. I'd find a good shadow to hide in till they were gone. If it was a _really_ desperate situation I'd just turn myself into a cat and walk right on by 'em, and they wouldn't suspect a thing.

"And I kept getting more courageous, started going a little further from home every night. You know, I must've seen every inch of this town west of the Strip by the time I got out of high school. I know this place better than most people know _their_ hometowns. But the thing that called to me was the Strip itself. All those flashing lights, all that neon, all that glory... I kept, like, edging toward it. I'd walk a block further every night.

"Mom used to let me go out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood every Halloween – and I always dressed up as _myself_, of course, 'cuz – y'know – it was the _one_ day out of the year where I didn't have to shapeshift to fit in... But the year I turned sixteen, October was nice and warm, and I finally got up the nerve to go right out on the Strip. What with all the crazy costumes that people were wearing, I totally fit in – I even got a couple of compliments. I was just skippin' up and down the street all night with a basket full of chocolates in my hand, and my heart pounding like crazy and a big stupid grin on my face... I came back three hours late. My mom stayed up, and she was _livid_. She's all like, 'Good Lord, girly, it's getting on for one A.M.! Where have you _BEEN?_' And like a good little girl, I tell her where I've been. So she just throws up her hands and says, 'Felicia dear, don't _do_ that! I've been worried sick about you!' And I'm like, 'I'm so sorry, Mommy, I didn't think...' And then she wraps her arms around me in a big bear-hug and she says, 'It's okay, sweetie. I'm more glad to see you home safe.'

She thinks for a second. "I know to some people Vegas is a horrible place; all they ever look at is the sleaze, and they get all cynical about it, calling it trashy and tacky and perverted and money-sucking and like a million other kinds of crap, but _dude_ – for a kid like me it was my idea of heaven. A place where the lights are bright and colorful, and all the people are walking around all giddy and excited, and there's some new wonderful surprise every five hundred feet. I mean, I loved it because it was my hometown, but suddenly I started loving it even more because it was _LAS VEGAS_... You know, I've been to Disneyland and all those places, and they're all like nine hundred tons of fun each, but that emotional connection just wasn't there. I don't love this town just because it's some weird-ass fantasy land; I love it 'cuz it's MY weird-ass fantasy land. I _know_ this town, these people, these casinos. They're all mine, in a way nothing else in the world is."

* * *

The tray is cleared off the pool table when breakfast is finished, but Felicia doesn't budge from her perch. Instead, Jon sets several large rolls of paper before her, and Vince and Gerry are beckoned over; they bring about five other people with them. Laid out flat, the papers turn out to be schematics – the architectural layout of The Joint downstairs. There follows an absorbing discussion on the subject of camera placement; they turn out to have six available. Most artists recording a live show prefer to leave such things to the discretion of the technicians, but Felicia turns out to be very involved in the process; her central concern is that the cameras and their operators not interfere with the view of any spectators. "Sometimes people can't see over the head of the guy in front of them – that's not, like, a thing you can predict or prevent. But somebody not enjoying the show because we put up a camera right in front of his seat, _that_ we can prevent."

Ultimately it's decided to station one camera in the mid-floor mixing booth with Vincent, two in the lower balcony (the VIP seats) where they won't block anyone's view, another on a platform at the far back of the room for wide shots, one in the security pit right in front of the stage, and one in the wings for crowd shots. "You had a good view of the house, didn't you?" says Felicia, turning to me.

Fairly good, but I wasn't exactly onstage with the rest of you.

"Well, we can stick a guy with a camera on stage, can't we?" she asks Gerry.

"What do you mean, put him in the wings or something?"

"That or, like, right _on_ the stage. Just not too obviously – like, we don't want it to be a distraction from the rest of the show."

The group around the table are deep in debate when the room telephone rings. Someone (I hate to think of them as anonymous flunkies, but I've yet to speak on more than general terms with any of them) goes to answer it. "Hello?" he says. There's a pause. "Yes, she's here."

Felicia's ears prick up. "Is it for me? Who is it?"

"Hang on. – May I ask who's calling, please?" Another pause. "He says, just tell her it's Donovan, she'll know who it is."

"You're damn right I do," Felicia replies, in an ugly tone of voice I've never heard her use. It's a shock to see her normally cheerful face abruptly grow flushed with rage. Sullenly, she hops to the floor, shrugging the bathrobe off entirely, and storms across the room to the phone, taking it from the roadie's hand. Without any pleasant preamble, she hisses into the mouthpiece: "All right, how the hell did you get this number?" She holds the phone up to her ear to listen, then brings it back down to speak again. "Oh, well, whoop-de-doo. I thought I told you I never wanted to speak to you again, not after that mess you got us into last time." She listens again. Her free paw is balled up on her hip, her tail slashing savagely behind her. "Oh yes it _was_. We walked right into it 'cuz of _you_... Dude, you almost got me _killed_. What do you th– Wait, what?... Yeah, it _better_ be an emergency... Well, of _course_ Anita's been 'feeling' something. Goin' around with you, it's a miracle she isn't _completely_ friggin' paranoid by now, poor kid... Right about what?... No, I haven't had time to read the papers... About a week. Why?..."

Her tail and ears shoot straight up in surprise. "They _**WHAT?**_ I thought they were _never_ going to – How'd she swing _that?_" Listening to the reply, she actually growls; she glances anxiously back toward the pool table, gritting her teeth. Her fangs are bared, and for the moment they no longer look the least bit cute. "Oh my _god_. Good behavior, my friggin' tail... Do they have any idea what's happened to her?... All right, all right, I know _now_. Keep your friggin' skirt on, dude." She sighs, disgustedly. "Thanks for the warning."

She slams the phone down into its cradle and stalks back over to the table. Her paws are tightly clenched into fists, her shoulders hunched, her entire body practically trembling with anger – as if she was repressing the urge to lash out and hit something. And looking at her petite but muscular frame, I understand that if she _were_ to lash out and hit something, she could probably do a great deal of damage. She told me the other day that I wouldn't like to see her angry; I'm seeing her angry now, and the flash in her eyes makes me profoundly uneasy. "What was that about?" Vincent asks.

Her reply is addressed to the entire table, but it's Jon her eyes are focused on. "Hood's been paroled. Time off for good behavior."

A shock runs through the listeners, for the obvious reasons. She can only mean the infamous Bonnie Hood, a/k/a Baby Bonnie, a/k/a Bulletta: the 'teenage bounty hunter' turned hitwoman who carried out several unsuccessful attempts on the lives of various open paranaturals. Hood was arrested in California the year after Felicia made her big debut, and convicted on multiple charges of battery, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder; the only two reasons she didn't receive a longer sentence were her willingness to testify against those who hired her to try to carry out the various contracts, and certain doubts cast by the defense on her sanity. She should perhaps have remained locked up in San Quentin's women's facility for as much as twenty years; instead, she has just been paroled after seven.

Somebody scrambles for the papers to learn the details. The day before yesterday, we discover, she was released from prison, after the parole board took into her account her seven unbroken years of perfect model-prisoner behavior. Jon scoffs at this, an ugly look creasing his handsome face: "Damned nonsense! She hasn't changed. She only acted the good little girl in front of that lot, because she knew it'd get her out – bloody soft-hearted Californians."

A scoop in yesterday's San Francisco _Chronicle_ reveals that Bonnie Hood missed her first meeting with her parole officer, choosing instead to disappear from sight entirely. A dragnet has been thrown across all of central California, although rumor has placed her at a Greyhound station in either San Jose or Santa Barbara.

"Ah, bloody hell," Jon moans, a hand to his forehead. "I'd wager she's going to Arizona."

"Oh my _god_, you're right!" says Felicia, hurrying back to the phones. "I'm gonna call my sisters and tell 'em to lay low... if they aren't already."

It hits me like a slap in the face: of course, her sisters! Felicia was not the only one of the mysterious catpeople (catwomen, really; no males have ever been found) to appear over the past twenty years. One of them, named Grace, had been managing a life in peace and relative obscurity somewhere in the vicinity of Sedona; Felicia, passing through Arizona on her first tour, met Grace and instantly developed a bond of sisterhood with her. Since then, Felicia's concentrated much of her efforts on finding other orphaned catwomen – and taking them to sanctuary on her "big sister's" farm. She doesn't discuss this often; indeed, we spoke on the subject yesterday afternoon, but very briefly: "I don't wanna bring _my_ world down on their heads," she told me. "At least not until they're ready for it."

Felicia fumbles with the buttons on the phone, her tail waving now more in anxiety than in anger. I look back at Jon and notice the rage in his expression, his hands clenching and unclenching as though he had claws like hers, or wished he did. This is not simply the rage of someone who feels that the paroling of Bonnie Hood is an offense to justice; I can only guess that he must have had dealings with her before. The possibility occurs to me – perhaps Jon himself is a closeted darkstalker. It could certainly explain his odd superstition Felicia mentioned to me the previous afternoon, about never working on full-moon nights. Thanks to Felicia, though, being a paranatural doesn't carry the stigma it used to – if he _is_ one, it mystifies me that someone so close to _her_, of all people, would choose to keep his true nature a secret. (Or perhaps it's not a secret: if there's anyone who knows for certain whether he's a darkstalker, it'd be Felicia.) Or maybe I'm just making it all up myself; I do have something of an overactive imagination.

The room goes quiet as we listen to the phone conversation. "Hello?... Lucy? Hey, baby, it's me. Is Grace there?... Okay, I'll wait..." A long pause. "Hey, sis... Yeah, I'm fine. What about you guys?... Oh. So you heard the news, huh... Uh huh... Well, that's a relief. What've you got in mind?" Another long pause. "Mm... I _guess_ that's all right. What if there's, like, a way to get around that? Is there anyth– Uh huh..." The tension is leaving her shoulders; her tail's movements no longer suggest anxiety. "Yeah. Well, I'll see what I can do... Uh, maybe I could. Let me think. I've still got a show Saturday, I could leave once we – actually, how's Sunday morning sound? I'll be done by then, for sure." She glances back at us again, and now she's actually smiling. "Well, tell them I'm looking forward to seeing them, too... Okay. I'd better go, Big Sis... I love you too. Bye." She hangs up and emits a loud sigh of relief. "Myahh."

"Everything all right?" Vincent asks.

"Totally," she says, smiling. "Grace says the cops actually called _her_ early this morning, right before the news broke – about B.B. not showing up for parole, I mean. They're watching the place." She turns to Jon. "She said she still wants me to show up, in case anything weird happens. I told her I'd be there as soon as I could once the shows were done with... I was figuring on going home, but now I guess I'm going to Sedona. You up for a drive, hon?"

Jon groans. "Aww, come on!" Felicia says. "We've made that drive before. It's only five hours."

"I know, I know. It's just all those _bloody_ hair-pin turns on that Route 89. I'm not looking forward to those."

Felicia walks up, picks her robe up from the floor, and bends over the sketches and schematics on the table. "So where were we?" she says, and plunges back into the technical discussion, all her worries apparently forgotten for the moment.


	4. Pages 12–13

[Pages 11-13]

––

Vincent makes a few phone calls at the end of the planning session, and we step out of Felicia's suite for a while, intending to head down and check the lay of the land at The Joint. She's had enough rest to manage a temporary shapeshift; it's bizarre, watching it happen right in front of my eyes. She begins to glow slightly, and her outlines go blurred. Her fur begins to fade, and larger dark blotches appear. Her hair changes color, growing darker; her ears and tail shrink into her body and disappear. What we're left with, when the change is over, is a woman in a dark navy-blue business suit with white pinstripes – the skirt reaches down to just above the knees. She looks like a completely normal human being, if you ignore that her hair is extraordinarily long and _also_ a deep midnight blue.

It's still Felicia's face, though. When you look close, you can see that her big green eyes still have the large slitted pupils of a feline, and as she grins at me, her little fangs catch the light. "Pretty impressive, huh?" I can only nod.

I'm reminded, however, of another question, and once we're in the elevator I ask her: I know you're not exactly ashamed of being a paranatural, but nevertheless – you could have made more use of that talent of yours.

"Oh, I did, all the time when I was a kid. I mean, that's how I managed to fit in at school for so long..."

But you kind of gave it up after a point, right? You certainly never used it when you were starting your career... I don't know, I just think it might have come in handy.

"You mean, hiding the fact that I was a catwoman?" she says. "Nah, I've _never_ been happy about having to do that, even when I was a kid. If you mean avoiding long, messy explanations, well, yeah – that's what Mom said about it... But I don't know. Hiding what I am, that's never appealed to me. Besides, I've never been that good at it."

I look her up and down again. Not that good? Really?

"Well, the actual _changing_ part's easy; I've had a lot of practice, so I can do a cat or a regular human really well. But it takes a lot of effort to _keep_ my shape once I've changed it. I couldn't keep it up for more than, like, six hours at a time when I was a kitten. My classmates kept catching me with my ears and tail out – I think we actually had to do _more_ explaining and hushing-up that way. _So_ not friggin' worth it."

So how long can you make a shapeshift last now? I ask. "As far as I can tell, twelve hours is about my limit – and I'm always, like, tired afterward. It's a pain in the tail." She chuckles. "My big sister Grace, though – she can disguise herself as a human for as long as a _week_. And even _she_ gets exhausted. Even after all these years, she's totally shy about people seeing her real form, so she has to hide out on the weekends and rest up... And then there's my little sister Pico; she's been practicing all her life and she can barely change at all."

Your little sister, you say... Your _youngest_ sister? "Yup." How young? "Well, she's twenty now. Which is so _weird_, 'cuz she still doesn't look a day over fifteen... We catpeople all age well, I guess."

Yeah, I noticed.

Felicia laughs. As the elevator car comes to a stop, she raises her hand (no longer a paw but a perfectly ordinary human hand, with fuchsia-colored polish on the nails) to her face and snaps her fingers; a stylish pair of blue sunglasses – cat's-eye frames, of course – materialize on her nose. "Well, let's get going," she says, and eases past us as the doors open, moving with a determined, strictly-business strut.

Our little platoon is moving across the casino again, this time with our mysterious businesswoman in the lead. Remarkably, although I notice a lot of people doing double takes as we pass, no one steps up to ask for an autograph. The face seems familiar to them, perhaps, and the hair is indeed blue – but the famous ears, paws, and tail are nowhere in evidence. Felicia's ability to shapeshift is no secret, but the results leave her identity just uncertain enough; the casinogoers around us don't appear able to overcome their reservations sufficiently to approach and inquire as to whether she's who they think she is: "It _could_ be her, but – I just don't know. Do I risk asking and looking like an idiot, or...?" And since most human beings are terrified of looking like idiots, they don't ask.

It strikes me that this is intentional on Felicia's part; since she's become famous as her _real_ self, her disguises are harder to penetrate when she chooses to don them, on those rare occasions when she actually wants some privacy from her fans. And sure enough, when I ask her about it, she confirms that this is exactly her intent. "Did it yesterday, too," she says. "When we pulled up at The Joint to get the gear unloaded, I was dolled up like this. You hadn't gotten there yet... what were you doing?"

I think I was checking in over at _my_ hotel, I say. "Oh, right. That makes sense. I was kinda wondering what happened – they said the _InTheMix_ guy would be waiting for us when we got there. Your flight come in late or something?" Or something, I say. I was finishing up an assignment in New York, and that took a bit longer than I thought; I was supposed to come directly out here Wednesday night, but I missed _that_ flight, so I had to take a red-eye flight to Phoenix and change planes for Vegas.

Felicia giggles. "Aww, you poor guy. Grace tells me Sky Harbor's pretty confusing to get through."

Oh, it's all right. Nowhere near as confusing as _some_ airports I've been in... I still get nervous every time I have to go through Chicago.

––

At The Joint, we are nine people in a venue meant for five hundred times that many; hotel security have given us the run of the place while Felicia and her brain trust plan out the camera placement. Empty concert halls and clubs are always an eerie experience for me – something feels _wrong_ about such a huge empty space that's meant to be full, especially if you _saw_ it full just the previous night. The floor of the general-admission area has been swept clean and the scuffmarks of shoes polished away. Somebody's turned on the Muzak, and Felicia can't resist the urge to caper across the deserted ballroom floor, twirling on one foot. There's a sudden brief flash of light, and it's no longer her skirt but her tail that is flying behind her; her clothes have disappeared and her catwoman characteristics have returned. "Just us in here," she calls over to us. "I figured I could drop the disguise." She dances on up to the rail that separates the (currently nonexistent) crowd from the stage; I follow with my own camera in hand.

Vincent and Jon are in the center pit with the other sound and lighting staff, checking to make sure none of the settings on the mixing boards have been messed with. Gerry and one of his assistants have gone up into the VIP areas; I see them moving back and forth, one on either side of the room, trying to make sure that the cameras won't block anybody's view once they're moved in. Another assistant is standing on the short scaffold at the back of the floor, marking out a position with a ruler and duct tape. Felicia has hopped the rail and is standing in front of the stage, holding an imaginary camera before her eyes. I advance to the rail and lean on it. Everything looking good from here? I ask.

"Sure," she replies. "This oughta be fine. I guess we'll have to ask 'em to move this rail back a couple inches, though – give the camera guy a little more room to work." She jumps up to the stage, where the band's instruments (Evan's keyboards, Jared's drum kit, Trilby's congas) have been looking rather lonely. She hunkers down front-and-center, surveys the room, and calls out: "Hey Gerry! How's it looking?"

"Pretty good so far," comes the reply from the VIP boxes. "I don't think we'll have any big problems."

"Okay." Felicia continues staring out at the room, rubbing her forepaws together. Her cat ears are drooping slightly. You look a little worried, I say from the rail. What's up? "Oh, nothin'," she replies. "It's just this stupid Bonnie business – it's got me a little on edge. And I'm a bit nervous about Saturday, too."

You? Nervous?

She nods and giggles. "It's funny. I only get nervous when there's, like, cameras around. I don't know _why_ – it's just some stupid thing that happens to me."

Afraid they won't catch your good side, perhaps, I say. Felicia considers that for a moment. "Mm. Yeah, I guess that's part of it. I worry that I'm not, like, _getting across_, if you know what I mean." She pauses, as if a little unsure how to continue, and then sits down on the edge of the stage and leans forward to me to speak more quietly: "I... I know I have an effect on people. It's never something I've learned to control; tell you the truth, I'm not sure I _can_ control it, or even whether I _oughta_ be able to control it." She shrugs. "It just _happens_ around me, all the time, whenever I'm giving off good vibes. It's like I'm some kinda reverse Typhoid Mary or something – I, like, _infect_ people with happiness."

You know, I do think I noticed something like that last night.

"So you know what I'm talking about," she nods. "And you see my problem. How do I get _that_ to come across on a TV screen? Seriously, dude, I don't think I can do it..." Her ears droop further and she sighs, looking down at her forepaws. "It's silly to worry about stuff like this, but I've never given a bad show, and I don't wanna start now."

I actually think you 'come across' pretty well on TV, I say to her. I remember the first time you played _Late Night_, and you absolutely OWNED it – and ever since then, every time Conan has you on, the ratings go through the roof... I don't think it _matters_ whether you can make people feel anything through the TV. They'll still watch, because it's _you_.

A big smile spreads across Felicia's face. "Myaah... How do you writers do that?" Do what? "You always have the right words. You always know how to sum things up." She chuckles. "I wish _I_ was good at that... When I'm writing a song, the music always comes easier than the words do."

Her eyes move down to her lap, where her paws are clasped together, then back up to the virtually-empty hall (where the tour bigwigs have huddled together in a group in the middle of the floor, and appear to be discussing something very earnestly) – then down to me at the rail. "Hey," she says, raising one blue eyebrow, "I just got a _great_ idea."

What's that? I ask. "Well, we're gonna have them move this rail back a little bit so the camera guys can work tomorrow night... You've still got your press pass, don'tcha?" I nod. "And I bet your magazine would be happier to see some shots from the audience, instead of way the heck off on the side of the stage. So how about you bring your camera right down here tonight?" she says, indicating the little trench.

That's a thought. As long as I don't get in the way of the security people...

"Nah, it oughta be fine," she says, clambering down into the trench. "My fans aren't exactly the rioting type."

The group on the floor turn toward us, and Jon whistles and waves. "Sweetheart? We've got a few things to straighten out here, if you would be so kind."

"Be right there!" says Felicia; she hops the railing next to me and skips across the floor toward her boyfriend, leaving an almost visible trail of good vibes behind her.

––

One thing I can definitely say for Felicia is that she's a consistent performer. Friday's concert is just as much of a crowd-pleaser as the previous night's. The Joint is packed to capacity again (and I think I see a number of faces in the audience that I remember from Thursday's show). The setlist is largely identical to last night's, and the band chug gamely through all two-plus hours of songs without the least diminution of energy or enthusiasm; I think the rest of the ensemble are somehow drawing on Felicia's boundless supply of energy. She never lets her bandmates' or the audience's spirits flag. And I suspect that she's playing to my camera just a little – at one point, she looks right into my lens and winks.

Late in the concert comes the ritual hazing of Jared Palevsky – Felicia badgers him to sing. "You know I can't sing," he replies.

"Myahh, c'mon, just one? Dude, don't be embarrassed..."

"Which one?" Jared asks, as Jon comes on to adjust his microphone.

"That Money Mark cover thing. You sing it better than me, man! _I_ could play drums for you, if that's what you want..."

Jon has returned to the wings, and everyone can see Jared shaking his head. "All right, kitten – but I'm not going to sing _that_ song tonight."

Felicia has been mugging for the audience, but she spins around when she realizes Jared's breaking from the script. "...Myuh?"

"I hate to put you on the spot like this," Jared says, "but me and the band have been rehearsing a new one behind your back... We thought it'd be a nice surprise – and I know you'll recognize it, so _you_ can sing along this time." The audience laughs, whistles, and applauds this idea, but Felicia has forgotten the crowd entirely; she's looking back and forth from Jared to Tyler to Trilby to Akiko, completely flustered, standing slightly pigeon-toed, her tail twitching frantically, her forepaw dangling awkwardly at her side with the microphone clutched in it. Guitarist Tyler is fitting a slide to his finger.

"Everybody ready?" Jared asks. The other band members give an affirmative response, except for Dom, who is busy selecting a pick for his bass; he finds the right one and gives Jared a thumbs-up. "One, two, THREE–"

And the band thunder into a loopy, stomping opening that I can identify immediately as an old Flaming Lips classic. Much of the audience recognize it, too, judging by the laughter and cheers that accompany it. Felicia stands with one ear cocked, still facing Jared, trying desperately to place that slide-guitar line that Tyler's playing. Her quizzical look begins to give way to a smile when she hears the song's first lines.

_I know a girl who / Thinks of ghosts / She'll make you breakfast / She'll make you toast / But she don't use butter / And she don't use cheese / She don't use jelly / Or any of these –_

Trilby and Evan, flailing tambourines, join Jared on the chorus, and a good chunk of the fans sing along as well. Felicia has turned back toward the audience a little, and I see her smiling, nodding her head to the beat. Yup, she knows this song all right.

_She uses Va-a-aseline / Va-a-aseline / Va-a-aseline..._

Tentatively at first, the catgirl sings along to the next verse, lifting her mic back to her face and turning fully toward the house, dancing a little in place.

_I know a guy who / Goes to shows / But when he's at home and / He blows his nose / He don't use tissues / Or his sleeve / He don't use napkins / Or any of these –_

Now Felicia is singing along at full volume, skipping cheerfully on the edge of the stage, her smile turning into an outright grin of glee at the ridiculous lyrics.

_He uses ma-a-agazines / Ma-a-agazines / Ma-a-agazines_

_Ma-a-agazines..._

Tyler comes back in with the slide guitar for the bridge, and as Jared and Akiko pound out the beat Felicia bangs her head, her hair whipping behind her. She's recovered her confidence to such an extent that she actually outsings Jared on the final verse.

_I know a girl who / Reminds me of Cher / She's always changing / The color of her hair / But she don't use nothin' / That you buy at the store / She likes her hair to / Be real orange –_

_She uses ta-a-angerines / Ta-a-angerines / Ta-a-angerines..._

The band thunder into the closing instrumental break, Felicia tripping along triumphantly. As the song closes and applause breaks out, she collapses to the floor, lying spread-eagled on her back, squealing with laughter. "_MYAAAHH-hahahahahaaa!_ Ohmigod, you guys," she sputters into the mic, "we _SO_ have to do that song again tomorrow night!"

––

**_(to be continued, probably)_**

_"She Don't Use Jelly": YT watch?v=AfpyoGFJNNE (Lyrics (c) The Flaming Lips)_

_Darkstalkers characters (c) Capcom_


End file.
